Die Politik der Sexualwissenschaft: Zur Produktion und Popularisierung sexologischen Wissens in Japan, 1908-1941

Most Western historians know the name of Sacahiro Hata, who collaborated with Paul Ehrlich in his search for effective treatments for syphilis. Many also know the name of Tenrei Ota, who did pioneer work on the intrauterine device. Most other Japanese sex researchers, however, are unknown to the West, even though there was a widespread interest in topics of sex and gender among the Japanese and a conscious effort not only to incorporate Western research about sex into Japanese medicine, but also to go beyond what the West said. Writers in German were the most consulted, probably reflecting the importance of the German contributions to sex research at this time. Freud, however, was not as important as Magnus Hirschfeld, at least in his influence on Japanese sexology.

Frühstuck’s book is essentially a reprint of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Vienna, and is based upon an exhaustive survey of both German and Japanese sources. To research the latter she spent some two years in Japan at Kyoto University. She is concerned with answering three questions: what kind of information was transferred to Japan, what use was made of the information transmitted, and what role this new knowledge played in Japan. Generally the information was transmitted from the top down, from members of the medical establishment who reinterpreted and vulgarized it for public consumption. There was an outpouring of articles in Japanese dealing with a variety of sexual topics in specialized sex journals such as Sei (Sex and sexuality), popular medical journals such as Tsūzoku igaku (Popular medicine), and more general magazines, as part of a deliberate attempt to “modernize” Japanese knowledge about sex.

Much of the Japanese concern was over public health issues, particularly prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases. This concern extended into discussions of hygiene, especially the importance of teaching it in educational institutions. Tied in with this were discussions of Western ideas of the importance of the mother in raising children, in the need to understand the sexual development of children, and even some of the Western ideas about the dangers of masturbation. There was also some discussion of homosexuality and other forms of variant sexuality, but this was not the center of major concern.

The eugenics movement also was imported into Japan, and the author has a whole section on this subject. Related to eugenics but also discussed separately was the question of birth control, a discussion that intensified after Margaret Sanger’s visit to the country in 1920. In general, however, it was the sex “experts” from the German-speaking community—some of whom, including Hirschfeld, visited and lectured in Japan—who exercised the most influence.

As any doctoral dissertation should be, this book is well documented. The bibliography extends to more than fifty pages; over more than half the listings are in Japanese (with German subtitles), and the rest are in a variety of European languages but with German and English predominating. Particularly valuable for those who do not read Japanese are the brief biographies of many of the Japanese writers on sexual topics.